CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.

Found 2 posts tagged ‘bavaria’

[Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.]

In a gross disservice to Bavarian history, it is universally said that King Ludwig II constructed his fairy tale castle Neuschwanstein as an escape from "reality." The castle itself is a colossal refutation to such sloppy—if not willful—misrepresentation. Quite the opposite of being trapped in the past or caught up in a romantic dreamworld, Ludwig was so forward thinking, so revolutionary, that he built a portal to access the very framework of the Bavarian ideal. Emblazoned throughout with murals and architecture depicting key scenes from Bavarian folklore, Neuschwanstein castle constitutes an elaborate "War Room" of mythic proportions. Indeed, Neuschwanstein is evidence that Ludwig attained a state of consciousness that Timothy Leary called the "Neurogenetic Circuit." Robert Anton Wilson explains that the Neurogenetic Circuit:

processes DNA-RNA-brain feedback systems and is "collective" in that it contains and has access to the whole evolutionary "script," past and future. Experience of this circuit is numinous, "mystical," mind-shattering: here dwell the archetypes of Jung's Collective Unconscious—Gods, Goddesses, Demons, Hairy Dwarfs and other personifications of the DNA programs (instincts) that govern us. [Prometheus Rising, 1983, p. 41]

To properly govern his people, Ludwig positioned himself to draw from the very paradigms of the Bavarian spirit. In other words, he infused his nobility with the high ideals of his country, literally surrounding himself (dome ceilings to floors) with model images of Bavarian enlightenment. Ludwig held a magnifying glass over the Bavarian blueprint, and a ray of sunlight hit the lens to form a hologramatic castle.

Far from having his head in the clouds, Ludwig's feet were firmly planted in his culture. That such a visionary was ultimately judged "mad" by his political enemies comes as no surprise. That Neuschwanstein has endured as the Eighth Wonder of the World is a testament to Ludwig's genius.